Paris has stopped for the day.
As the French capital’s citizens begin to strike over the country’s pension system, singer-songwriter Lou Doillon has disappeared. After a few hours, Lou calls explaining her phone was flat. “I’m sorry for this morning. My phone was on strike,” she says with a throaty laugh.It’s chaotic, but chaos is a state Lou and her music thrives in, as Australian audiences will learn when she returns for So Frenchy So Chic next month.
Music is a relatively new venture for Lou. After decades modelling and acting, Lou released her debut album in 2012. Her late start is a surprise due to her family; her parents are film director Jacques Doillon and the multi-talented French icon Jane Birkin, and her half-sister is Charlotte Gainsbourg.
With her new album, ‘Soliloquy’, Lou is now comfortable with her music career. “The first and second album were written without any intention of being heard, thinking that they would barley exist,” she says.
“With the second album, I really threw myself in after the first tour and was excited by live performance and the freedom of it. My life was completely shaken by this adventure, so I guess I was trying to take my work a bit seriously. So, with the third one, I thought this was becoming my thing and what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.”
For ‘Soliloquy’, Lou shared production duties with The Shoes’ Benjamin Lebeau, The Dø’s Dan Levy, and American indie icon Cat Power, the latter of whom she collaborated via email on the track ‘It’s You’. “It wasn’t easy at all times, but I do like the energy,” she says.
“[Benjamin is] with a very, very mad rock & roll punk French producer who only works at night in a warehouse in the freezing cold – he was a very intense guy.
"[While Dan is] a vegan living in the countryside with a young wife and doing chimes in the morning and working with a positive attitude. It was like working with day and night. But I wanted the album to be like a mad ice skater going on very thin ice in a kind of dangerous environment.”
Along with multiple producers, ‘Soliloquy’ differs to Lou’s past work with its sound; the bare, piano-led chansons of old now have rhythms and subtle textures, the former of which developed by accident. “The last gig I did for the second tour, I realised just before getting on stage that I had many guests coming and it was all going to be filmed,” she says.
“Suddenly there was all this thrill and excitement, and I realised I had lost the connection to the songs. Just before getting on the stage I told my manager that I’d do the first song by myself without my band. I said I’d sing it a capella and walk through the crowd and see if I can get back to the real song. So, I walked through the crowd and started singing and, just in a fury, I started banging my boots on the ground.”
That performance and the new album have changed the way Lou performs live, losing herself to the moment and sure to thrill Australian audiences. “I find myself dancing and screaming and running from one side of the stage to the other, which is great because I’m surprised and the audience is just shocked,” she laughs.
“For the first time I’ve got people giving me the rock & roll sign, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, finally!’. If that’s the energy we can give onstage, then that’s wonderful.”
Lou Doillon 2020 Tour Dates
Sun 12 Jan - So Frenchy So Chic at Werribee Park (Melbourne)Tue 14 Jan - Rosemount Hotel (Perth)
Sat 18 Jan - So Frenchy So Chic at Bicentennial Park (Sydney)
